It has occurred to me recently that you can tell a lot about a person's character by their favorite Bruce Springsteen song. I have been listening to quite a lot of Springsteen's Greatest Hits album, so here are my thoughts.
"Born to Run" - A person who feels trapped and is unable to do much about their circumstances likes this song. Or else someone who just likes songs with incomprehensible words and likes to sing along with the chorus.
"Atlantic City" - I don't know about this one so much. But if you can tell me who the chicken man is, I'd be appreciative.
"Born in the USA" - This is too easy. If you like this one, you either pick it because it makes you laugh at presidential hopefuls who don't actually listen to song lyrics or you yourself are too silly to listen to the actual lyrics. Also, I had a friend who once told me the song seems incomplete to her - there are spaces where it seems like lyrics are missing. Ever since I have been told this, I get mad at these spaces in the music.
"My Hometown" - Sentimental at heart.
"Glory Days" - Bitter feelings about high school still follow you around.
"Thunder Road" - You are a cool, cool, cool person.
"Hungry Heart" - I hate this song. It is the only one that I actually can't listen to on the album. I think it just upsets me that Bruce Springsteen tried to write and perform a pop song. If this is your favorite, you really just have bad taste in music.
"Human Touch" - Get laid now.
"Better Days" - An optimist who has been through a lot in life.
"Streets of Philadelphia" - Suicidal.
My favorite Boss song is "The River." What that says about me, I am not sure. But I love the details in the song. "I can see her riding in my brother's car/Her body tan and wet down at the reservoir/At night I'd lie awake just feel each breath she'd take." You can picture it, right down to the car along the open road, driving away with the water behind them.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Adventures with Erock
It was cold. Bitterly cold. And my friend Erock had only a jacket on. Thin-soled shoes. No scarf, gloves, or hat. Eventually, I grabbed a headband out of my pocket, zipped my heavy winter coat up, and tossed her my hat, scarf, and gloves before shoving my hands in my pockets. We were in the middle of nowhere. Looking for a Mormon Temple. Honestly, I don’t think either of us even knew the town in Maryland we were in. All we knew is that this Temple had a hell of a Christmas light display and we were going to see it.
We trooped through fields with Erock in her leather loafers and tears freezing on my eyelashes. The bus driver of the #5 bus had told us that the Temple was just “over there” as he gesticulated wildly with his arm. We ended up in one of those suburban-like neighborhoods with cul-de-sacs and minivans where you never see anyone because people get right out of their cars and hurry inside. The kind of neighborhood where a service tends to your lawn. The kind of neighborhood where you don’t imagine two girls from the Midwest will appear in your driveway and ask you where the Mormon Temple is. Another man gesticulating wildly that the Temple is “over there.” Another frozen field. The snow/rain mixture that is particular to that part of the country where winter can’t decide to come all the way with the snow began to fall.
Suddenly, on the horizon, there was a building. It was beautiful. Both of us stopped in our tracks, in awe. It was lit up and it was beautiful. It reminded me of how amazing I used to think downtown Grand Rapids was at night when I was young, before I knew that Grand Rapids was really a Podunk town, before I knew that those buildings were gobbling up precious kilowatts of electricity that folks not twenty miles away could use to heat their homes and feed their families, before I became that world-weary person who was stomping through the snow, tired of the life I was leading, tired of playing politics, tired of the city life, and before I would have ever searched out a Mormon Temple in the middle of nowhere with someone I barely knew with little more than a bottle of water, an apple, and a half-eaten granola bar in my pocket.
But Erock was special. I had met her months earlier and every time we went somewhere it was an adventure. And she really never gave up. And she made me stop being world-weary and stop moping about city life, and stop crying over peach juice. How could I be world-weary when there was so much I hadn’t seen? Hadn’t done? We had to do it all. Everything in the city we had to do. Because we didn’t want to leave and say, “boy, I wish I had done that.” And I did it. For myself, I guess. But mostly because I had Erock to tell me that this was the kind of thing we were supposed to do. And if I didn’t do it with her, she’d do it alone. Then she’d be trooping through some Pleasantville suburb of Maryland on her own.
A few years later, Erock was moving to Boston. I was going to help her look at apartments for her, her boyfriend, and two cats to live in. It was the opposite of that night in Maryland. It was hot. That New England sunshine was beating down on us in the peak of the afternoon. The real estate agent apparently had us pegged for some naïve chicks from the Midwest, but by this point, I had rented out several apartments in a rental market nearly as impossible as Boston's, Erock had survived two apartment searches in St. Louis, and we weren’t putting up with any bullshit. As he kept taking us higher and higher in these crappy buildings, Erock kept repeating that she didn’t want anything higher than the third floor if there was no elevator. And he kept going. Finally, after looking at an apartment on the FIFTH floor that was suspiciously similar looking to ones we had seen on the first, second, AND fourth floors, Erock lost her shit.
“What part of nothing past the third floor don’t you understand?” she railed at poor Raphael. Even now, I can see Raphael’s flabbergasted expression. “And why have you shown us three of the same apartment? I didn’t like it on the first floor!! Why would I like it in the fifth floor?”
It quickly became clear to me why I was brought on board to look for apartments.
“I’m sorry, Raphael. Can you excuse us for a moment? We’re going to just take a quick look in the kitchen again.” I hurried Erock into the other room, where I lectured her on being nice to the realtor and told her she must be thirsty and dehydrated because that’s the only reason she could possibly have for treating a man that way. Her mama, back home in Illinois, would definitely be upset about this if she heard from anyone about this little outburst.
As I lectured, I turned on the kitchen faucet. Lukewarm water came out of the cold water tap. “Drink,” I ordered her.
She shook her head.
“Drink.”
More head shaking. I’m ashamed to admit it, but at this point, I lost my patience and grabbed her head and pushed it under the faucet. You better believe it that the girl drank.
Erock got married this past weekend. Congrats to her and TrevyBear. I hope they have an excellent honeymoon and get back to the cats before I catnap them forever.
We trooped through fields with Erock in her leather loafers and tears freezing on my eyelashes. The bus driver of the #5 bus had told us that the Temple was just “over there” as he gesticulated wildly with his arm. We ended up in one of those suburban-like neighborhoods with cul-de-sacs and minivans where you never see anyone because people get right out of their cars and hurry inside. The kind of neighborhood where a service tends to your lawn. The kind of neighborhood where you don’t imagine two girls from the Midwest will appear in your driveway and ask you where the Mormon Temple is. Another man gesticulating wildly that the Temple is “over there.” Another frozen field. The snow/rain mixture that is particular to that part of the country where winter can’t decide to come all the way with the snow began to fall.
Suddenly, on the horizon, there was a building. It was beautiful. Both of us stopped in our tracks, in awe. It was lit up and it was beautiful. It reminded me of how amazing I used to think downtown Grand Rapids was at night when I was young, before I knew that Grand Rapids was really a Podunk town, before I knew that those buildings were gobbling up precious kilowatts of electricity that folks not twenty miles away could use to heat their homes and feed their families, before I became that world-weary person who was stomping through the snow, tired of the life I was leading, tired of playing politics, tired of the city life, and before I would have ever searched out a Mormon Temple in the middle of nowhere with someone I barely knew with little more than a bottle of water, an apple, and a half-eaten granola bar in my pocket.
But Erock was special. I had met her months earlier and every time we went somewhere it was an adventure. And she really never gave up. And she made me stop being world-weary and stop moping about city life, and stop crying over peach juice. How could I be world-weary when there was so much I hadn’t seen? Hadn’t done? We had to do it all. Everything in the city we had to do. Because we didn’t want to leave and say, “boy, I wish I had done that.” And I did it. For myself, I guess. But mostly because I had Erock to tell me that this was the kind of thing we were supposed to do. And if I didn’t do it with her, she’d do it alone. Then she’d be trooping through some Pleasantville suburb of Maryland on her own.
A few years later, Erock was moving to Boston. I was going to help her look at apartments for her, her boyfriend, and two cats to live in. It was the opposite of that night in Maryland. It was hot. That New England sunshine was beating down on us in the peak of the afternoon. The real estate agent apparently had us pegged for some naïve chicks from the Midwest, but by this point, I had rented out several apartments in a rental market nearly as impossible as Boston's, Erock had survived two apartment searches in St. Louis, and we weren’t putting up with any bullshit. As he kept taking us higher and higher in these crappy buildings, Erock kept repeating that she didn’t want anything higher than the third floor if there was no elevator. And he kept going. Finally, after looking at an apartment on the FIFTH floor that was suspiciously similar looking to ones we had seen on the first, second, AND fourth floors, Erock lost her shit.
“What part of nothing past the third floor don’t you understand?” she railed at poor Raphael. Even now, I can see Raphael’s flabbergasted expression. “And why have you shown us three of the same apartment? I didn’t like it on the first floor!! Why would I like it in the fifth floor?”
It quickly became clear to me why I was brought on board to look for apartments.
“I’m sorry, Raphael. Can you excuse us for a moment? We’re going to just take a quick look in the kitchen again.” I hurried Erock into the other room, where I lectured her on being nice to the realtor and told her she must be thirsty and dehydrated because that’s the only reason she could possibly have for treating a man that way. Her mama, back home in Illinois, would definitely be upset about this if she heard from anyone about this little outburst.
As I lectured, I turned on the kitchen faucet. Lukewarm water came out of the cold water tap. “Drink,” I ordered her.
She shook her head.
“Drink.”
More head shaking. I’m ashamed to admit it, but at this point, I lost my patience and grabbed her head and pushed it under the faucet. You better believe it that the girl drank.
Erock got married this past weekend. Congrats to her and TrevyBear. I hope they have an excellent honeymoon and get back to the cats before I catnap them forever.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Two hours of what?
In fifth grade we watched Bambi. It was supposed to be a treat. I was alseep on my desk, drooling, before twenty minutes were up. In high school, my parents actually let me leave the house one night to go to the movies with my friends without a chaperone. I was asleep before the opening credits to Jurassic Park were finished. This weekend, Biker Boy got The Ususal Suspects through Netflix and I was asleep by the end of the first robbery.
I am a hater. A hater of movies. Don't get me wrong, I love the extra time for sleep they provide me, but the actually watching of movies is a bit of a problem for me.
My theory is that I have a bit of ADD. If I'm not thinking about something (a class, a book, a game, whatever) or doing something (dishes, cleaning, workting out, whatever), my mind revolts and shuts down. Just staring blankly at a screen for two hours does not stretch my mind and I get antsy and bored and then I sleep. It does not help that all white men look the same to me. In The Usual Suspects, there were approximately eighty white male characters introduced in the first ten minutes. The only one I recognized was Kevin Spacey and the others all looked alike, so I gave up trying to figure out who was who.
It also doesn't help that a lot of movies are DARK. So dark. And what do you do when someone shuts off the lights? Well, after a little hanky panky, you fall alseep. That's what movies do to me, to! A little hanky panky and then sleep.
I have several friends who claim that they think a lot while watching movies and that they are good tools for analyzing social and political events and blah, blah, blah, things that movie people say. I don't think my friends are lying to me so much as they are ADDICTED TO MOVIE POPCORN.
Biker Boy does not subscribe to my theory. His theory is that I actually think TOO much about the movies. I'm so busy trying to figure out who's who and what's going on that I don't actually know what's going on. It's the not seeing the forest for the trees kind of thing. It's not adult ADD, it's adult stop being a grad student and trying to find all the asnwers all of the time.
The take home point is that you should never watch a movie with me. I'll get up to do the dishes in the middle of it, if I don't drool on your shoulder first.
I am a hater. A hater of movies. Don't get me wrong, I love the extra time for sleep they provide me, but the actually watching of movies is a bit of a problem for me.
My theory is that I have a bit of ADD. If I'm not thinking about something (a class, a book, a game, whatever) or doing something (dishes, cleaning, workting out, whatever), my mind revolts and shuts down. Just staring blankly at a screen for two hours does not stretch my mind and I get antsy and bored and then I sleep. It does not help that all white men look the same to me. In The Usual Suspects, there were approximately eighty white male characters introduced in the first ten minutes. The only one I recognized was Kevin Spacey and the others all looked alike, so I gave up trying to figure out who was who.
It also doesn't help that a lot of movies are DARK. So dark. And what do you do when someone shuts off the lights? Well, after a little hanky panky, you fall alseep. That's what movies do to me, to! A little hanky panky and then sleep.
I have several friends who claim that they think a lot while watching movies and that they are good tools for analyzing social and political events and blah, blah, blah, things that movie people say. I don't think my friends are lying to me so much as they are ADDICTED TO MOVIE POPCORN.
Biker Boy does not subscribe to my theory. His theory is that I actually think TOO much about the movies. I'm so busy trying to figure out who's who and what's going on that I don't actually know what's going on. It's the not seeing the forest for the trees kind of thing. It's not adult ADD, it's adult stop being a grad student and trying to find all the asnwers all of the time.
The take home point is that you should never watch a movie with me. I'll get up to do the dishes in the middle of it, if I don't drool on your shoulder first.
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